I missed so many Life Book and Let’s Face It lessons while I was on the road trip that there was just no way I was going to be able to catch up and get them all done – especially not with kids with me 24/7. I, therefore, plucked out two lessons I was going to tackle from those I missed. The first of these was a Life Book lesson with Jane Davenport. I decided on it because the use of watercolour meant that it should not be too time consuming.
It all went wrong from the first step because I used coloured pencil for the sketching. The idea was that this would loosen us up as we would not be able to erase and make things perfect. After two weeks of no drawing, my draughtsmanship skills were seriously lacking. I was aiming for a more teenage face but the face I drew ended up being a bizarre mixture of teenage features with toddler proportions. Ugh. No time for a do over so I thought I would plough on and see if I could improve it with the watercolour layer. Nope. A little bit of black ink to pull it all together brought some features more sharply into focus but it was still a hot pink mess. What I do like about my painting, however, is the colour palette. The violet, deep pink, cadmium red, and a little touch of cobalt blue are a pleasing combination to my eye at least.
A Pict in PA 
I totally agree with you on your observations of the finished piece. Lets just say…lessons learned. Improvement on its way. 🙂
I think my major lesson is that art skills definitely rust without practice. My ability to set out facial proportions had gone completely iffy with such a long break from drawing.
And I again agree with you. I am trying to draw faces again but everyone one of them are epic fails….more practice needed.
I’m still rusty now. My latest Let’s Face It lesson is a hot mess. I will share it here anyway because I share my failures as well as my successes but it’s pretty awful.
Good for you. I have not drawn a face for months and months. My experiments are all so awful.
Maybe time for a faces challenge?
Heehee! September is coming and that means 29 faces 🙂
Ta da!
Let’s see 🙂
I don’t know – I kind of like the quirkiness of this face. It looks like a slightly awkward girl with a really endearing expression. Maybe not what you were hoping for, but you do really have a wonderful ability to put expression in each of your drawings. (I agree about the palette – wonderful colors!)
Thanks, Ellie. It isn’t hideous but it’s definitely wonkily derpy. But we learn from our mistakes as well as our successes so it is all grist to the mill.
The hair has wonderful life!
Thank you very much, Pip.
And I like the hair too Laura, as well as the colours – all is not lost! Isn’t it amazing how quickly we lose ability – I worked for hours every day for nearly three weeks before anything began to flow again – big lesson learned!!
I think I forgot how much of drawing is actually akin to muscle memory. Knowing how to draught the proportions of the face should come fairly easily to me – especially had I permitted myself graphite and an eraser – but they were all over the place. I am sure I will bounce back to my former standard fairly quickly but it has not happened yet – I just produced another rubbish piece. Oh dear. Thanks for the lovely comment about the hair.
I feel your frustration 🙂 Keep going …..
Oh I will. Art is enjoyable decompression for me even when the outcome is not great.
I kind of like her. She us a bit weird but that’s just what she is. Don’t judge 😊. I used to be able to erase color pencil… maybe depends on paper.
I could lighten the lines a bit by erasing them but not enough to be disguised under washes of watercolour so I just had to go with what was there. Perhaps it depends on the brand of coloured pencil. Thanks for your kind comment.
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I agree like 100%
Thank you! And thanks for stopping by my blog and reading.